A Long Summer
by ELfict
Summary: Castle's off to the Hamptons with Gina, leaving Kate Beckett behind at the precinct. A story that follows them over the summer. A summer they'd much rather spend together...
1. Just For Show

**A/N: So, this a post-finale story. Yeah, like the loads of others out there. But come on, people need some closure already! Because we all know that this summer's gonna be a long one…**

−**Chapter One−**  
_Just For Show_

The elevator doors slid closed. Castle caught one last glimpse of his favorite detective before the only this he could see of the homicide department was the inside of the elevator. He sighed and his smile faltered slightly before he quickly regained himself. He glanced aside to Gina. It was true that they had really hit it off on the phone.

He knew he should be happy. After all, he was going off to the Hamptons for the summer with a beautiful women on his side. But yet, there was something that twisted in his gut every time he thought of that prospect. Even more so when he thought of the way he had seen Beckett smiling at Demming. And their kiss.

It was terrible to do so, but he still decided to hide away in the Hamptons. With his ex-wife nonetheless. Yes, they had hit it off, but still this was all just for show. Her showing up at the precinct, was sort of to show Kate he had moved on. He wanted her to be happy, even if it meant that he wasn't in the picture. Demming made her smile, even laugh sometimes. Things were better this way.

He kept hearing his mother's words in his mind. _"In life you just have to accept the fact that not everything is gonna go your way."_True, this might be the right this to do, letting her be with Demming. But doing the good thing still hurt like hell.

Kate Beckett had been rejected by guys. Not too often, but it happened. Sometimes it hurt, at other times it didn't, depending on how much she liked the guy. But never, ever had she felt like this. Okay, maybe it was close as to when Will left her. The thing was, this time she hadn't even been rejected yet. Because he hadn't even had to chance to do so. It shouldn't have bothered her this much, after all, this spared the humiliation factor of it all.

_"The heart wants what the heart wants."_ That's what he had said. She could've sworn he was talking about them at that moment. But, now she thought that maybe she might have imagined it.

She glanced aside to see the three guys at the other side of the glass, quickly looking away, pretending not to have stared at her. Lanie still looked at her though, a sad smile on her face. Apologetic, even.

Kate blinked and looked away. No way was she going to cry. Not in front of them, nor when she was alone. It was a sign of weakness, she thought. With all the murders she dealt with on a daily basis, it didn't feel right to cry over something stupid like a guy.

Hurt, that was what she felt. Slightly disappointed too. After all this time of bickering and flirting, she had been ready for more. Apparently he wasn't. Or at least, not with her.

She tried to regain her posture and walked into the room where the rest was still sipping beer and eating pizza.

"Hey, I'm going home." She said, as she entered.

Lanie looked at her friend. "Kate, are you alright?"

"Yeah, fine. Just tired." She replied and smiled.

After a couple of 'goodbyes' from the boys, she grabbed her coat and walked away, the smile still on her face. The smile that was just for show. Because she wasn't really in the mood for smiling.

**A/N: So, this was just a sort of 'prologue' for the rest of the story. Although this story will be mainly be about Castle and Beckett, I'll probably write about the summer of the others too. Alexis, Martha, Lanie, Ryan and Esposito come to mind.  
I know this was short, but that's kind of the thing with prologues, isn't it? Anyway, I would love to hear you opinions on this, and any ideas are welcome as well. :D**


	2. Sleeping Troubles

**A/N: Okay, so I haven't updated for a **_**very **_**long time, I know. I'm sorry for that. I did, however, figure out what I want to do with this story. :)  
Anyway, this story's called 'A Long Summer', so I'm going to make this my summer project. I really hope you'll enjoy it and maybe even review…**

**−Chapter Two−  
**_Sleeping Troubles_

Castle was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling of his room. It had been about two hours since they'd arrived there in the Hamptons.

On itself, everything had went pretty smooth. Except for the traffic in the city, there had been basically no traffic at all, so that hadn't caused any problems. Still, it had been hard to leave. Not physically or anything, but just… it didn't feel right.

And that wasn't the only thing that wasn't really right. The whole ride there had been… eerily quiet. When he and Gina had just left, there had still been plenty of small talk, but eventually they ran out of it. Which brought him to the realization that he didn't really have anything to talk about with her.

All this time he had been wrecking his brain to come up with something. He had tried to remember what it was that they had spent hours on talking about on the phone. That had been the moment the subject, or rather, person he had been trying not to think about popped into his head. Kate Beckett. The only thing they had talked about on the phone was Nikki Heat and, in extension to that, Kate Beckett and the precinct.

Something twisted in his gut but he chose to ignore it. Cannel had been right. Kate had turned more and more into a distraction instead of a muse. The whole precinct had actually. He had gotten too caught up in the thrill of real crime, the exhilaration of catching real murderers and, of course, the daily challenge to slowly break down Beckett's walls. Flirting, bickering, it had almost gotten a ritual. He thought it was going well. Then that damn Demming had to come and ruin it for him. That punk just walked right in and took advantage of the fact that Castle had already broken down most of her walls. Because he could feel that he was close. Close to her.

A soft buzz made Castle tear his eyes away from the ceiling and he picked his phone off the nightstand. One new message, it said on the screen. It was from Alexis, he saw when he read it. He smiled. She was asking him if he had gotten there okay. Quickly he typed a reply back and hit send. He missed her already.

He sighed.

Alexis had texted him to know if he was safe. Beckett hadn't. It made him wonder if she would miss him. Probably not. _She has Demming. _He shook his head and quickly dismissed the thought. _No. I'm not going to mope around all summer and think about that._ It stung too much.

He turned around.

Somehow his bed didn't feel all that comfortable anymore. His brow turned into an irritated frown and his closed his eyes again, hoping to get to sleep again.

But he knew it would be useless.

* * *

Once Beckett had gotten home, she didn't really know what to do. Which didn't happen often. If she wasn't mulling over the case she was working on, she usually read a book.

But there were a couple of problems with those usual 'routines' at the moment. First, the case she had been working on, together with Castle, was closed. Done. Finished. _"I thought that this would be our last case." _The one line that had changed a lot, if not everything, replayed in her mind a lot these past few days. And she couldn't help it.

The problem with reading a book was that most of the books she owned were his. Of course, she had plenty of others as well, but she didn't want to walk to her bookshelf and see his name on all those covers. What's with that anyway? His name was printed on those books almost bigger than the title was. It always seemed to be that way with famous novelists. Why couldn't he just be a not-so-famous novelist. At least then his name would be less noticeable.

She shook her head in frustration. She was being silly and she knew it.

Finally she decided to order some Chinese, eat it and go to bed. At least that was a routine she could still keep, although she usually did that after a long working day. There wasn't anything comforting about routines. But the thing with routines, or habits, is that you can do them on auto-pilot. You don't have to think.

Which was good. Because Kate knew what she would end up thinking about if she did.

Currently, she was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Trying not to think. Something that sounds easy, but is harder when you actually try it. She needed to think. But not now. She wasn't ready. _You were ready to be with Castle. _One single thought slipped into her none-thinking zone.

She turned around and closed her eyes, trying to get some sleep. But she already knew it would be useless.

* * *

**A/N: So, another short chapter. This is kind of another chapter before we really go into a story here. It won't take me as long as it took me to write the next chapter, since I already got some ideas for the actual storyline, also involving the other characters.  
Also, this might all be a bit sad and all, but it will get better. Happier. But getting better always takes time… **


End file.
